


Silence

by PastPresentFiction



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastPresentFiction/pseuds/PastPresentFiction
Summary: Elara Mallick wanders between worlds, territories, communities.  She doesn't trust, she doesn't join.  She stays apart.  Safe, but lonely.  Quiet, but without companionship.She's watched them, the group that prides itself on living as animals would.  Whispering.  Wearing skins, human skins.  She keeps to the fringes, away from their notice.As she sits, writing, keeping track, she's interrupted by more noise than she's ever heard among their trees.  And it goes on and on and on...Who is HE?  And why can't they STOP him from making that infernal racket?
Relationships: Negan (Walking Dead)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Feels Like the Very First Time...

Pulling the newest, barest, cleanest notebook from my pack, I softly sighed and sat carefully down with my back against the widest tree to keep watch while I rested and kept up my personal history of a world gone to shit.

I grabbed the hottest commodity in my pack, hotter than the food tucked inside, and uncapped it. An ink pen that hadn’t dried or ran out. Looking at my last entry, my pen poised over the top of the next fresh page, I began.

Day 3,775-ish

Why does that look so familiar?

Most of my previous entries started similarly. Stream of consciousness was something my dad preached for his clients and as his daughter I was weaned on it. There was an honesty from allowing your brain and thoughts to run rampant, so I did. 

StarTrek. I sound like a fucking Trekie. I’d laugh or ‘lol’, but I’d rather not die. My pen, this wonderful instrument that allows me to keep track of the monotony of life after the end of the world, is nearly silent as it glides across the page. Allowing me to write without fear of becoming a snack for a rotting corpse that refuses to acknowledge its own death, or a human that refuses to acknowledge that life is precious. 

Humans. When was the last time I was face to face with an honest to God person? I won’t count the creatures whose territory I’m currently squatting in, these beasts that wear the skin of the undead, that whisper and live as animals, hiding behind a primitive ideal so they can feign superiority to their plight. They count less than the very vermin that they skin. 

I wonder, at times, if I can even make noise still. It’s been so long since the last time I attempted a conversation. Who was it with? The woman who tried to distract me while the urchin she called her son tried to steal me blind at knifepoint? Or was it the band of men who each yelled “claimed” as they tried to divest me of every piece of my clothing and body? 

My pen stopped moving before the realization that I’d heard noises was confirmed. Muscle memory was an amazing thing. The reactions of the human body to stress and the stress alone that this new world inflicted on a human being was mind boggling. I listened, so still that I wondered if I looked like a part of the very tree I leaned against. 

The voice seemed abnormally loud, but being in the territory of those who called themselves Whisperers, what did I expect? A man, deep booming voice, and the talking went on and on. I was shocked that it continued, seemingly unabated for so long. 

As they drew nearer, I moved as quietly and slowly as possible, making certain to make as little noise as possible on the off chance that the man would stop speaking or that he’d be silenced permanently and they’d hear and see me. I tucked the notepad and pen into my pack, hitched it back on my back, had my naturally camouflaged bow notched and ready with my body hidden behind my former leaning spot. I watched as they led the blindfolded, still talking man through the trees toward where I knew they kept a sort of camp.

“Honestly, fellas - or ladies. Kinda hard to tell underneath the outfits. I wanna join, alright? I am a joiner. Get me a damn application already. I mean, look at you guys, right? Cool-ass outfits, the whole back-to-nature paleo vibe? You are a survivalist's wet dream. Not to mention the number-one selling point: no more bein' eaten by the dead. But just, out of curiosity, 'cause it's killin' me, what do you got goin' on down low? Are you flyin' around commando-style, or do you got, like, walker long johns with the la flap?” My head tilted as I watched him, so cocky, so LOUD. The large man, the second to the woman leader, turned and I felt certain that the time had come for the man to be silenced for good, but instead of using the dual blades, he simply gagged him with the blindfold. 

Feeling that the show was certainly anticlimactic, I leaned my shoulder against the tree and waited for them move on, including the rear guard, so I could backtrack and get the fuck out of their more populated area. Another show would be happening, and that one, where the blindfolded, then gagged man would be tested, and I’d rather have time to get the fuck out of dodge and find shelter far away from wherever the fuck the next round of insanity was coming from.

The next time I came across the LOUD man, I was washing up in a stream. I thought I was far enough away from the freaks and crazies, but apparently not. He was alone, for which I suppose I should have been grateful, but for all I knew at the time he might have had a quota for skin suit recruits.

“Shit, I did NOT expect to see YOU.” I was a tad shocked, and a lot half naked. Fuck. But I was still cleaner than him and ALL of the group he was keeping company with, so screw the false modesty. His eyes roamed over my body in an appreciative way, and I hoped like hell that he wasn’t planning on doing something idiotic like wolf whistling, cause fighting a fucking corpse while topless wasn’t all that fun, trust me. “I’m Negan.” Really? 

I nodded, and went back to bathing, now that I felt pretty confident that he wasn’t planning on calling up the Alpha, Beta, Omega gang. The downfall of human civilization was no reason to start smelling like you’d died and went to a shitshow. Even if some fuckers hadn’t gotten the memo. Once I felt cleaner, I brushed out my hair and twisted it back up into a knot on top of my head, and replaced my bra and shirts. He watched the show like it was the best thing on television, and since the only other channel was the water making slight ripples, I guess I could understand. I started to pack up my rucksack.

“Not gonna give me a name to go with the fucking wet dream fodder?” I rolled my eyes, and kept putting my things back in their pockets. “That’s cold, sweetheart, I mean what the fuck should I call out when I’m taking matters in hand?” 

“Thought you said you’re Negan?” I offered, voice quiet, hoarse from lack of use, but happy to learn it was still capable. “I think your ego would demand you use your own.” I was turning from him when he sighed and asked me to turn back. 

“Don’t you want your own show?” His eyebrow arched, his hands were on the hem of his shirt, and I bit my lip to hold back a laugh. He looked so certain of his own attractiveness that I had only ONE course of action. 

“I think I’ll live.” And with that, I turned and walked away, smiling as I heard his quiet chuckle follow me as I left.


	2. A Name For...

Negan I learned, not on purpose, was difficult to ignore. The man was LOUD and like a fucking magnet or a beacon. Seriously. How could one human being be so fucking bright and burning NOW?

Whether he showed up at another one of my bathing spots, because I had a multitude, not that the Whispering freaks used them often or if I stumbled upon him while he was on some errand of stupidity for the great wondrous lump of oddball leader it didn’t matter. He was just THERE. Filling space, taking up room, and it was weird. How could he FILL anything when we were OUTSIDE for fuck’s sake?

“There you are,” I was sitting against a rock, a huge fucking rock, not writing for once, but doing bow and arrow maintenance. “Haven’t seen you in awhile. Got worried.” I shook my head. He was so strange. “Gonna tell me your name yet?”

“Still haven’t figured out why you’d need it.” I answered, smiling as double checked for knicks in each shaft of my arrows. “Not as though we’re friends, after all.”

“That stings,” he sat, across from me, and I could see how relaxed he looked. Long legs straight out, on either side of mine, elbows on his knees, arms dangling as he watched me work. “Why haven’t I ever seen you before?”

“Before? Before what?” I flicked a tiny shred of a splinter from below the metal on the arrow I was focused on. He went silent and that was scarier than his constant chatter, so I was forced to look up. He was studying me, his eyes, circled by the black raccoon like circles that the others wore like badges under their masks looking so foreign on his face. Odd since he was a complete stranger to me.

“There’s something so-” he stopped, leaning slightly forward, eyes intense. “Were you a part of a group, ever?”

I gave a hushed snort and shook my head. “No.” I thought of my dad and swallowed the lump that always seemed to form with his memory. “Not really a joiner.”

“And you survived alone.” It wasn’t a question and it didn’t even seem to be something the was saying TO me. “How the hell did you manage that?”

“I was careful.” And I had been. Very fucking careful.

The next time I came across Negan, he didn’t see me. Rare. Seeing Negan in the wild without Negan seeing me. He was lurking, watching the very creatures he’d been so keen to join. And as I sat perched, carefully and quietly far removed from where they, or he, could see or sense me, I wondered what precisely he was playing at?

When I told him that I survived due to my careful nature I hadn’t been lying. Not only was I careful about how I travelled, but I was careful about how I hunted and where I rested. I also learned how to keep track of where there were pockets of civilization, a term that I learned was loose once the technological advances relaxed.

I watched, I waited, and I sure as fuck didn’t trust just because people had a heartbeat and could speak. Which is why I didn’t automatically think that Negan was my new best friend. Not only did he have questionable choices for comrades, but he was a sneaky bastard.

Watching him watch them, then try to use what he’d watched to get on Alpha’s side made me have more questions and less trust to go on. I had no idea where he’d come from or why he’d picked this group, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t as simple as they had the biggest sticks, regardless of how often he tried to get me to LOOK at his stick.

“Are you SURE you don’t want to peek?” He was trying, AGAIN, to get me to take advantage of his fair play idea for mutual stream bathtime. “I’m starting to feel like a pervert, sweetheart.”

I raised an eyebrow as I pulled my shirt over my bra. “Starting to?” Unimpressed, truly and completely, that’s how I felt. “Tell me when you roll over the starting point, I’d hate to have a shock.” His smirk grew to a full blown smile as his hands drifted from his bare chest to the button on his jeans. “Are you really so starved for attention that you NEED me to see it?”

“Are you really so SURE you don’t WANT to see it?” A flick of his wrist and the button was free, daring me to turn away or stop him. “Come on, what’s the worst that happens? You lose control and jump me?”

I gave a soft snort, still careful of noise. He might be willing to fight off something with his pants around his ankles but I’d rather not die watching it. “I think I can control my urges, Negan, it’s you that seems incapable.”

His zipper sounded like gunfire as I crossed my arms over my chest. Really? If he wanted me to ‘lose control’ shouldn't he shimmy or something? Licking his lips and shaking his head, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his jeans, and without further ado, he shucked his jeans and I was shocked to see he was wearing jockeys. He stood there, jeans around his knees waiting for me to-

“What?” I asked, when he didn’t say or do anything. “Aren’t you planning on bathing or-” He was staring at me. “Wait, does it do tricks?”

  
His lips quirked, then a soft chuckle hit my ears. “You surprise me every fucking time-” He shook his head and then kicked his pants and shorts free of his feet. Walking into the water, he splashed lightly, cleaning himself. “Couldn’t even pretend that you’re at least a LITTLE impressed?”

I tilted my head, studying him. Worrying my bottom lip between my teeth, I took my time. He washed as I looked. And looked. And looked.

Finally having enough of my silence, and Negan was clearly a man for whom silence was NOT golden, “WELL?!”

“Oh, was I supposed to give a detailed critique?” I raised my eyebrow and took a step closer. “Alright, let’s start at the top and work our way down, shall we?” He waited, and I had to fight a grin. “Your hair looks like a blind barber with a rusty knife had a go at it in the dark. The scruff isn’t terrible,” his lips were back to smirking, not that I was certain they’d ever truly stopped. “Your eyes,” I moved a touch closer, the toes of my boots dipping nearer to the water, “if only they weren’t ringed in that terrible black-” my hand had raised, as though to wipe it away and when I realized it, I pulled back. Feeling awkward, I swallowed down the urge. “How old are you?” It came out quiet, like everything I said or did.

“Not very mannerly,” his own voice was just as quiet, not his normal tone, but more like he was afraid to scare me away. “Let’s say I’m old enough to know how to treat a lady.” I nodded, my eyes roaming past his lips, to the scar on his throat.

“I see someone tried to make you quiet permanently,” that hand of mine, a mind of its own sometimes. My fingertip was touching the puckered skin before I made the connection between the urge and agreement. Looking up, I saw his eyes were locked on me. “You’re too thin,” I whispered, thinking how angular he was, wondering if he’d always been. “But strong too.” My eyes moved down his body, taking in the ink that graced the skin of his arms and his chest. “A rebel,” I bit my lip, eyes travelling lower, but my fingertip pulling away from him completely. I heard him release his breath. “Must be chillier in the buff than I thought.” That made him chuckle, and the tension was eased. Thank God.

He dressed not long after I moved away. The bubble that had grown, then burst, was gone. Or I hoped it was. Entanglement now was a bad idea. Nothing was certain, but this world was most certainly not meant for whatever the fuck he might have in mind.

“I think I earned your name,” he was saying, as he pulled on his leather jacket. “Come on, sweetheart. You saw ALL of me. Least I can get now is a name.”

I shook my head, but it fell freely from my lips regardless. “Elara.” He had only one, why not me? “Call me Elara.”


	3. A Warning Is A Warning...

While I seemingly crossed paths with Negan more and more, the scarier moments came when I could see him, but he had no idea that I was nearby. Watching him turn the same charm on that he seemed to ooze onto the leader of the animalistic group made my stomach churn and bile threaten to force its way free. 

If he used this tactic on her for some shady purpose, then what purpose was he using it on me? 

During downtime, which I had an ample surplus of, I had to decide whether reflection of the past was warranted or wasting time on a future that seemed less and less possible was a better use of the time.

Memories? My dad-single or widower, depending upon which relative or narrative was easiest to swallow at the moment, a therapist who was more in touch with his patients’ issues than his own. Remember the old saying, “a shoemaker’s children always go barefoot”? My father took it to heart and made damn sure that I would be fine, he just wasn’t as careful with his own mental health.

His death, coming a full year before the rest of the world went to shit, was something of a gift. If I’d had to- no best not to even THINK it- OK memories were a NO.

A future daydream then-alright.

Let me think about it. First, we’d need a cure. A cure for anyone bitten by one of the infected or dying with the infection inside them. We need a humane way to end those who would rise if they do die, something that would allow us to keep our humanity in check. And let’s figure out how to keep one another from going full on feral.

So we have:  
Cure for bitten and dying? Check.

Humane end for the risen? Check.

Feral humans put back to sorts? Check.

That just leaves-

“Elara-” Damn it. He’d NEARLY gotten the drop on me. Almost. I’d heard the snap of a twig on his approach. The slight scent of that gruesome mask, hell even the undercurrent of his musk. “You look like you’re pretty fucking focused on something.” 

I shook my head and stretched. Refocusing on him. He looked- Like he needed a distraction too. 

“What’s wrong?” He barely breathed, but I could make out the gentle rise of his chest. A small sigh. “Pull up a patch of dirt.”

He sat, across from me, his long legs framing mine. “You said you aren’t a joiner.” I nodded. “Ever?” 

“Clubs in school, I guess.” I settled more comfortably against my tree. “Why do you ask?” 

“I’ve been a-” he shook his head like he was trying to convince himself. “Leader, a prisoner, a follower-”

“Any of them fit?” His eyes met mine and he smirked. “Ever try just being yourself?” 

Huffing out a short breath, he shook his head. “And who the fuck is that?”

I shrugged. “Negan.” 

I wander for a ton of reasons. Sometimes I get bored. I feel nomadic and I want a change of scenery. I like being near water, for washing, for fresh drinking, and for the calming effect. 

I like to move so I can get a new perspective. Looking at the same thing over and over, even if the view is nature isn’t healthy. So I wander to get a fresh view, fresh air, fresh ideas. 

Food is another reason. Be it for hunting or foraging, I like to have variety. Sticking to the fringes keeps me out of known territory, giving me plausible deniability if I’m ‘caught’ by one faction or another. It also keeps me apprised if I have to run, hide, or keep out of the fucking way of whatever wave of violence is coming next. Because while the monsters are real, humans are still just as fucking dangerous.

As I’m on one of my foot powered trips, I hear it. It’s as familiar to me as it is to any human being. Even if you were spared the rod like me, you’ve heard the sound of a whipping. It’s been used in movies, it’s been heard in music videos and in sex play, so the sound isn’t as foreign as one would like to imagine. And as much as I’d love to pretend otherwise, I’d heard it many times as I’ve flitted around the territory of the weirdos that Negan was making time with. 

It shouldn’t have shocked me, really it shouldn’t have, that he’d be taking part in this round. Or that it would be a ritual between him and Alpha. They were doing a weird tug and pull, those two, and I had no reason to see it as anything strange or abnormal. I barely knew the man, afterall. Yet, as I stood far out of sight, watching as they whipped one another’s arms, as the chanting began warning me to seek shelter far away from what was sure to come, something told me that I knew him far less than even I’d thought possible.

I knew, regardless of how I felt about the chanting, whipping, really gruesome and sadly anticlimactic S&M imagery, that I needed to get my ass hidden in one of my MANY hidey holes. One of the other side effects of wandering is that I had a cache of places that most survivors barely glanced at that would not only keep me safe, but offered me a place to tuck away to and ignore the rest of humanity until they got their shit back in order. 

Some were clearly old hunting cabins, others were shacks, and some bore the tell tale signs of being former moonshine stills. Regardless, four walls at least and a roof were my requirements. Bonus if there was a stove or fireplace of some sort, and God fucking praise Jesus if it was furnished. 

Of course, I should have known, given my luck since meeting Negan for the very first fucking time at MY bathing spot that he’d find my spot. That out of ALL of the shacks in ALL of Godforesaken fuckoff Virginia Negan would manage to bring Alpha to MINE.

I was writing in my notebook, killing time as the quiet was cloaking me like a soft blanket when I heard the first hint that it was being broken. And then, arrow notched, shoulder against the side of the shack, I watched as he walked behind HER as they approached MY spot. My heart was pounding SO loudly in my ears that IF they were speaking I couldn’t hear the words. I knew the moment she saw me. I saw the surprise on her face. The confusion. I was shocked, because I expected an attack, but she only turned to him, a question on her lips, and then with a flash across her neck, she had a matching wound to his. Only hers was far more effective at quieting her than his had been.

What happened next? I sat down, back to the image of him and her, to whatever was outside MY shack. My back against the wall of the shack, my bow on my knees the silence returned or the pounding of my heart so loud again that I was rendered deaf. I didn’t see what happened after the flash of his blade, or after I turned away. I didn’t want to.

I’m not sure I was still in the shack, honestly. I thought about when I was a little girl. When my dad was seeing patients from his office at our house, a huge red brick Victorian on a tree lined street in southern West Virginia. The sidewalks were rippled by the roots of the trees, imperfect and I remembered jumping over the humps. Creating hopscotch boards on the sidewalk was difficult, so we had to go to the playground or the park. 

I remembered my grandma fussing at Dad about a pair of white knit leggings he bought, and how he’d been so distracted with his schedule that he hadn’t paid attention to the panties I wore under them, so when I came home that evening, she’d had to point out that the very bright primary colored rainbow ones I chose weren’t appropriate and that he’d have to show as much concern to his kindergarten age little girl as to the crazies that were coming and going each day.

“Elara?” Hoarse, his voice sounded hoarse. My eyes were locked on the dust motes dancing in the late day sunbeams shining through the cracks of the shack’s walls. “Can you say something?” 

“Is she dead?” Just as quiet and hoarse as his, I wondered, idly if he’d buried or burned her body. He knelt in front of me, in the path of my dusty dancers, forcing my focus on him. “Well?” 

He nodded, eyes locked on mine, but hands to himself. “Yeah, she’s dead.” My turn to nod. “I need you to come with me, Elara.” I tilt my head, studying him. “Please?”

I want to argue with him on this. I don’t join anyone. Especially men who randomly cut a woman’s throat in front of another woman, but he cut a woman’s throat in front of me, so perhaps now is NOT the best time to poke that particular bear. I nod my ascent. He helps me to my feet and waits while I get my pack and shit together. 

“I have to meet with a few people,” I’m thinking about the giant that is Beta, now that he’s killed their Alpha, he gets that designation. A leader, like he was before. “And, I need you to trust me.”

Easier said than done, I think, but say nothing. 

Negan talks as we walk. He asked me if I listened as he and Alpha came to the shack. I don’t speak, honestly there’s not a hell of a fuck ton to say. He takes my silence as a ‘no’, so he tells me the story of his past. 

“I was married,” I listen, thinking if nothing else it gives me something other than the bag he’s carrying or the knife I know he has to think about. “Before everything went to shit, I was married to a woman named Lucille.” He’s walking beside me, measuring his steps to match my shorter strides, keeping pace with me. “She didn’t tell me she was sick, not until it was too late to do anything to help her. She died right when-” When he stopped I understood, when he would have to make a choice that no one should have to make. “I couldn’t do it.” I thought about how I felt about Dad dying a year earlier, knowing that I didn’t have to make that choice. A gift. “My emotions? Gone. It changed me into-” he sighed, and biting his lip, I felt his gaze land on me. “I told her,” I knew he meant Alpha, “that I’m dead inside. It’s gone, I have nothing left.” I should be afraid then, right? Isn’t that the warning of a killer? Someone who wants to murder and rip people apart? “I lied.” 

I swallowed, but kept walking. I didn’t know what he wanted. I didn’t know who he was, what he was, but I truly fucking hoped I wasn’t about to die at his hands. Or at the hands of whomever he was insisting I go with him to meet.


	4. Home Sweet...Didn't I TELL You I Don't JOIN Things?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, I GUESS this is a 'warning'? Mostly this is a silly little story that hit me square in the face. It came to me and isn't meant to be much of anything. It's a purge so I can get back to the more 'serious' shit I write. Plus, OK, I want Negan. A LOT. Naked fun silly Negan.

As we grew closer to the meeting point, Negan grew quieter. A blessing AND a curse.

I’d never been gifted at guessing anyone’s age. Even prior to the world aging everyone at an average of five years a fucking week, I sucked at it. The woman waiting for us could have been around my age, or she could have been closer to my mother’s age, had she survived giving me life. She doesn’t seem to take notice of me at all, which gives me time to study her and try to make some sense of her and Negan’s exchange, but that seems less than helpful.

Mostly Negan seems lacking in her esteem.

From their back and forth I gather that it took him far longer to murder/assasinate/decapitate Alpha than the woman he addressed as Carol had expected. While he had technically fulfilled his part of the deal, she wanted more time to complete hers. Instead of rushing to Alexandria, the community they were a part of, she wanted time alone to process. Since I have no background and it would appear that I gained the power of invisibility- Wait, if I was invisible, why not take advantage? 

I was about to do just that when the slight movement caught my captor’s keen eye. Damn it.

“Elara,” his tone sounds pleading and my eyes close in an attempt at gaining strength. “Please.”

I go with him, again, and he tells me about Alpha’s daughter. Lydia, a name I didn’t know, but a child I vaguely recalled from the sightings of their group during my travels. He’d hidden her in another spot, to keep her safe from a mother who wanted to end her life. Together we go to the cabin, another of my haunts, one that I use sparingly and only during the harshest weather. When Negan enters first and a fist connects with his face, I’m stunned into submission. A wild, crossbow wielding man stands demanding answers, and I have to say, I’m both impressed and slightly terrified. 

“Where’s Alpha?” He’s growling, and I blurt it out. That she’s dead, that her head is lodged on a pike at the border of their lands. “The hell are you?” 

I’m glaring now. “Nice of you to ask that NOW.” I manage to bite out with an eye roll. “I’m no one of importance, clearly. Think of me as just an innocent pedestrian.” Innocent pedestrian who’s been taken hostage by a maniac, and then kidnapped by a redneck crossbow freak. My day gets better and better. 

“She’s dead?” His eyes land on me again, and I nod. “Do you even know who she is?” the ability this man has to doubt my intelligence both impressive and irritating. Seriously. 

“Yeah. Dumpy. Gross. Whispery. Hick. Creepy as FUCK?” Pointing with my thumb at Negan, I tell a secret that even I wish I wasn’t privy to. “He played ‘hide the pickle’ with her.”

I wish I had a camera and film. Something, ANYTHING to capture the looks on their faces. They were PRICELESS. And Negan’s sputtering attempts at explanations. 

“Why’d you kill her?” Crossbow was lowered from my person, so now they could get down to the nitty gritty, I guessed. I relaxed marginally, pulling my pack from my back and sitting down. 

Negan had recovered from the horrifying knowledge that I’d managed to get Alpha Does Negan Live and in Living Color quickly and started tossing shots about Daryl’s ‘girlfriend’ and some more back and forth that made me consider how many puddles of manly piss I was going to have to dodge before I could escape the testosterone fueled wonderland I’d wandered into. 

Eventually Daryl insisted that we vacate the cabin. I started to argue, but I got fucking overruled. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fucking wonderful good goddamn reason why I am NOT a joiner. Then he went a step further and tied up Negan for the trip.

“Bondage?” My eyebrow raised as I took in the ropes being tied around Negan’s limbs. “Kinky much?” Their heads raised, eyes locked on me as I kept my voice down from habit. “First the whipping thing in the forest, now ropes in this cabin-”

I’d done it again, I created a vacuum of awkwardness. Good. Now maybe they would let me-

“Come on, smart mouth-” the gruff roughneck muttered, pulling Negan’s bonds. “Let’s get goin’.” 

We head back toward the fucking border. Negan and Daryl having more back and forth and I feel like the third wheel in the WORST version of a buddy cop/odd couple movie ever optioned. I’m tired, I’m bored, and I am very much overloaded on the too peopley button. 

When we get to the border I nearly scream. Her head is fucking gone. And of course, Daryl the wonder brain thinks this means Negan is lying, and by extension he somehow has manipulated me into being his bard. Because Negan is so fucking what? Charismatic that my brain melted and I IMAGINED what I fucking witnessed. Um, OK. 

“I saw what I saw,” I offered, moving forward toward the pike where I’d watched Carol pop the weird fucking prop earlier. “They’d never leave her here.” I muttered, thinking about her pack. “They’re creatures of habit. This line is for enemies. For the disgraced. For showing who has been taught a lesson and for a reminder. She was their leader, their saint. They’d never demean her and leave her here.” 

“Are you saying-” Negan was watching me like he’d never seen me before, and he probably hadn’t. Not like this, not as the academic version of myself. 

“Pack animals, or people who are pretending they’re pack animals, are habitual. Whereas they line their border as a warning for those who break ranks, they would never show their own loss or mourning in the same horrifying light.” I sighed, looking at each spot that was empty. “The last time these pikes were filled, they were filled with-” I looked at Daryl. “Your people?” His nod was curt. “Putting her head here, that’s an act of war and aggression, I hope she knew that.” I was talking about Carol, and I know that they both knew it. “You know that the leader role goes to-” I didn’t have a chance to finish. Men.

They argue about whether Negan enjoyed his time with Alpha, a gruesome topic so I went back to studying the pikes. The markers, the ground. One day, very soon, they’d learn who the new Alpha was, and I REALLY hoped they were both together and I got to see it. Fucking ignoring males. 

Daryl gives up on waiting for the elusive Carol’s return to the pike line. He insists that I accompany him and Negan back to Alexandria, and I feel like a prisoner that Negan once mentioned being. Although to be fair, neither of us were bound when we arrived. 

I was given a room in a house, and a little girl, inquisitive and cute, wearing an odd hat came to greet me. 

“Hello, I’m Judith Grimes,” she was wearing a gun that was almost as long as her forearm and a katana was strapped to her back. I was impressed despite myself. 

“Elara,” I held out my hand and hoped I was smiling. Negan stood beside me and she grinned up at him, which I found strange. “I think you must know this one-” I gestured to him dismissively as she shook my hand with gusto.

“Oh me and Miss Grimes are old friends,” he was close enough that his body head was bleeding into me. He didn’t say another word, but she nodded toward a building nearby and his head gave a small tilt that could mean a number of things. “Do you mind showing Elara around?” 

“Course not,” her smile grew, and my tour began as Negan headed off toward the buildings nearby. 

The community was impressive, but I missed the wildness of the forest. Even the shower and the bed in my temporary room wasn’t tempting enough to make me want to stay. My fingers felt around the window frame, tugging until I could open it enough to get a bit of a breeze flowing. Sighing at that tiny shred of freshness, I sat down on the soft bed and pulled my notebook out of my pack and the pen free from its pocket to fill in the blanks since my last attempt.

I was still writing when I heard the small notice go up that Carol had come back. 

The first warnings come and I find it lucky that I wasn’t attached to my new digs. Moving again, this time to an abandoned hospital, a tower where we divy up the chores and tasks, something I am more than capable of aiding and abetting, regardless of how often I’ve managed to run and hide to survive. 

I haven’t seen Negan since he rushed off during my tour with Judith and I hadn’t spared much thought for him. I updated my history of the times, so to speak. I managed a nap, for which I was certain to be thankful for later. I’m sent to search for Negan at some point, seemingly to make sure he’s behaving himself, much to my chagrin, and I find him with a young woman. Thinking that I could do with one less Naken Negan Fun Times scarred into my psyche, I’m about to turn and go, when I hear her tell him that most people had hoped he would have died while he was gone as well as Alpha. Oh dear.

I sigh, louder than intended and the dog with the two of them alert them. Shit. “Sorry, I was sent to do a head count.” Using an exaggerated finger point, I do so. “One, two, and puppy makes three,” I’m turning to go, when the girl brushes past me. Fuck fuck fuck. I stop and drop my head. Dear God, if you’d like to do me a serious solid, let this fucking floor swallow me right fucking now. Please. Amen.

“Elara,” quiet again, not pleading, just quiet. Tired. I turned back to see that the dog went with her. Lydia, it must have been Alpha’s daughter, cleaner than I’d ever seen her, but clearly taking her mother’s demise well. He looks beat, worse than I’ve seen him. Not that I’d seen him all that much. Christ. “Come here for a second?” 

“I was sent to find you anyway, so look at me, first day on the job and already head of the curve.” I walked closer. “You can’t force it, you know that, right?” 

“Who are you?” He was leaning against a wall, staring at me like he was seeing me for the first time again, always so surprised. “Seriously.” 

I shook my head. “A lifelong student.” I mirrored his posture and sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Negan. Who I was, who I am? None of it matters anymore.” I shrugged. “Nuggets of knowledge, that’s all I have.” 

“How do I help her?” He wanted to, it was so clear and heavy. His need to make it right. To fix it for Lydia. “How can I make her feel-”

“Better?” I was staring at him like he was crazy, because it was insane. “Negan, her mother is dead. You killed her. Her mother wanted to kill HER. There’s no easy fix for that.” I shook my head. “Lydia’s a victim and has been one since the moment she drew her first breath. Until she comes to terms with that, and the mixed up shitstorm of fucking modpodge of shit that she feels for that woman who birthed her? She can’t grieve it, she can’t let it go, she can’t fix it and feel all better.” I pushed off the wall and started for the doorway. “If she can’t, then I hate to tell you Mr. He-Man Alphamale, you haven’t got a prayer.” 

I hear that the horde is coming, and calls to each post. Daryl asked that I’m found and given a position near Carol, since he noted my bow and I suspect that he chose to believe it was more than an accessory. She too is an archer, and as I move to stand beside her, I suddenly feel less invisible. 

“Didn’t really get a chance to speak before,” she says, as she checks her bow one last time, and I too am doing final checks. “I’m Carol.”

“Elara,” I offer, notching an arrow and readying my first shot. “Are we aiming for walkers first, or Whispering freaks?” 

The flurry of activity keeps my mind from thinking about the endings. Endings are the WORST when you become a joiner. It’s why I stay apart. It’s why I don’t introduce myself or learn names or sleep in beds or-

Cause the endings come after the battles you don’t run from and you see the girls or boys you spoke with and learned about piled high or tossed like dolls thrown aside by irate toddlers at the end of a destructive playtime. Endings ruin walls and people and destroy bodies and lives. There are always the both sides' arguments, but the truth is that there is a good side and a bad side, but when the bodies are stacked, when the limbs are entwined and the blood is splashed around, I dare you to separate it into good and bad. 

Carol and Lydia lemur the horde, from what I hear later, as I’m being bandaged on wounds that I didn’t notice being given. I’m not present when Negan’s given the title I knew he’d accidentally earned with his decapitation of Lydia’s mother, for which I will FOREVER be saddened, but the look of shock on his face when he tells me about it later, much much later when we have a quiet moment alone will forever be etched in my memory banks. 

When he tells me that he and Lydia have made a sort of peace, I roll my eyes.

“What? I didn’t push her.” A raised eyebrow and his smirk is my answer. “I think my charm is growing on you, Elara.”

“You mean like fungi?” I ask, trying to sit up, but he won’t allow it. “I am NOT an invalid.” 

“No, but you do have a head wound, you stubborn-” and then he does something that shocks me enough to render me immobile. His lips touch mine, a slight brush, enough to stop me from moving, but not enough to make me freak completely out and hit him. 

Not to be outdone, as he’s about to pull back, my hands, traitors that they are, slide through that hack job of a haircut and hold him to me. I can feel the smirk return as his lips press back against mine, but I could give a shit as my mouth opens in invitation and he takes it. His tongue touches mine and then his arms are around my back and I’m not prone anymore, but sitting on his lap wrapped around him. My teeth tease his now kiss swelling lower lip, and he groans as he pulls back. 

“We shouldn’t.” That’s my cue to groan. “You have a head wound, Elara, and as much as I want to,” he shifts and I feel just how fucking much he WANTS to. “We can’t. Not yet.” 

I shake my head. “Where’s pervert Negan?” I mutter, flicking my tongue against his lip and smiling as he moans. “I REALLY like pervert Negan.” 

“Fuck if I don’t LOVE pervert Negan, sweetheart,” he laughed, leaning forward to lay me down on the bed again. “I promise he’ll come out to play with you as soon as you get the all clear.” 

I pouted, letting him tuck me in, but feeling quite peeved that I couldn’t have more. More of him. NOW. “Can regular Negan at least hold me while I have forced celibate naptime?” I sighed. He chuckled and slid into the bed beside me. “I guess this’ll do.” 

“Course it will,” he murmured into my hair. “Just make a list of all the fun things you and pervert me can get into instead of counting sheep-”

Like that was going to help my sorry ass go to sleep...


	5. The Slowest Of Slow...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want bonus points. Usually those SLOW burns keep burning until I start getting virtual slappings.
> 
> OK, truth time. I wanted, NAY I NEEDED smutty good times with Negan. And so, without further ado...and by that I mean *CLEARS THROAT* Here's Negan---SMUT! (See what I did there? Huh? HUH?) *pokes*
> 
> Yes, this isn't a serious story. Glad y'all caught on, finally.

Waking up in a soft bed, wrapped in strong, warm arms was a tad disconcerting. Eyes closed, my head throbbed as I tried to piece together where and WHEN I was- had I been talked into a faculty party by Margaret after all her prattling on about it? If I had, which would be entirely out of character for me, unless- what date was it? Groaning, I reached out- slapping thin air in search of my nightstand, where my phone and by extension my overextended Google calendar lived, no matter how much I’d indulged the night before.

“Elara?” That voice. HIS voice stopped my reaching. I pulled my hand back from hovering uselessly in the chilly air, knowing now that I was years removed from Margaret’s meddling in my lack of affairs. There’d be no more faculty events, whether I’d attend willingly or protestingly. And my cell phone with or without Google’s efficiency apps, was truly a relic in this current timeline. “How do you feel?” 

I shoved the disorientation of waking up after sleeping off a mild concussion and snuggled back into Negan’s arms as I considered what he was asking. How did I feel? After using his rather asinine idea of making a list of what the perverted side of his personality and me could get into once I was given the all clear, I was feeling rather rested and tingly to be honest. I bit my lip and thought about a few of the tamer aspects of my list.

“Elara?” Negan’s voice was deeper somehow, sleep possibly making it rougher? Having never woken up with the man, I had nothing to go on. “You ARE awake aren’t you?” 

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider feigning sleep. Toying with him felt quite tempting, but then he shifted slightly and I felt another part of him that was WIDE awake and a few of my LESS tame ideas that were on my ‘Negan to do’ list came roaring to the top and I couldn’t have faked sleep if I was promised an Oscar. I made a tiny noise deep in the back of my throat and he took it as the very clear invitation that it was, and then I was on my back and he was cradled between my thighs. 

“Longest fucking night of my life, Elara.” He breathed against my mouth, lips hot, needy, hungry. My fingers were sliding along his scalp, feeling for proof that he’d nicked himself during the ill fated hair grooming that I knew he must have forced upon himself, but I found nothing. Or maybe I was distracted by the rough pads of his fingertips teasing under my shirt, touching the bare skin of the sides of my abdomen. “You’re skin is soft, how the fuck are you so fucking soft,” he was whispering into my mouth, and I smiled as I realised that he NEVER stopped talking. He had to release my mouth, even when I whimpered at the loss of the taste of him, so he could get rid of my shirt and he tossed his own off to be extra efficient. “I fucking hope you have that list ready, Elara-” but I was already yanking him back to me, just as starved for him as he seemed to be for me. 

Naked, sweaty, and sated we were still tangled as the sun rose steadily through the window next to the bed we woke up in. I felt his chuckle rather than heard it, and thought that perhaps he’d finally lost his voice. His fingertips were making tickling trails along my glistening bare skin, and my fingers were tangled loosely in the soft smattering of chest hair that dotted his skin. 

“Still surprising me,” I smiled as his voice broke the silence, a breath, a whisper. “Ever since seeing you standing in that damn watering hole. Bare titted, glaring at me like you thought I was the biggest asshole you’d ever seen in the flesh-”

I shook my head. “Try loudest.” His laugh was still silent, but it shook the bed slightly. “I was sure you were going to do something to force me to have to fight bare breasted. And all I could think was ‘great, I’m going to die with my boobs hanging out- I’m going to be an undead stripper.’” Another round of silent laughter, and even I gave in. 

“A part of me REALLY wishes I could see that-” He buried his face into the top of my head and inhaled the very scent of me. “NOT you, I can’t stand the thought of it being you, but fuck if that doesn’t sounds hilarious, Elara.” I rolled my eyes.

“You know-” I tipped my head back, using his chest as a chin prop. “We only crossed off about half of the first page of my list-”

“Half?” His eyebrow raised. “Of the first-”

“Page,” I nodded, smiling as I moved to straddle his body. “What’s wrong, Negan?” Lowering my body, I was happy to see that at least ONE part of him seemed UP for another attempt. “Getting too OLD?”

His hands fell to my waist as his eyes narrowed at my challenge. “We’re about to see just who’s ‘too old’, little girl,” and with a well place thrust of his hips upward, I had to wonder just how far away the nearest horde was, because I was fairly certain that our comrades in arms, if they were still nearby, might NOT be ready for another round of battle.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, honestly, I laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME I see the clip of Beta taking Negan to meet Alpha wearing that damn blindfold. For THREE goddamn seasons everyone has threatened Negan about his mouth. Yet it took a fucking GIANT to finally figure out how fucking GAGS work.


End file.
